


Compromised Position

by Lines_of_Pain_and_Glory



Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst, F/M, Power Dynamics, Smut, Yes this is where my head was at for Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-03-12 22:24:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3357494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lines_of_Pain_and_Glory/pseuds/Lines_of_Pain_and_Glory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started out as just another “Oops, we got caught.  Better make out to throw off the security guy…” moment, business as usual, except instead of playing along like Hardison or Eliot or Sophie would have, Nate stiffened when she kissed him and that was just as suspicious as where they were and what was in her purse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“This is weird. We should stop.”

Why does he always have to be so difficult? She catches him by the collar before he can get away.

“So what? I’m weird. Deal with it.”

“Parker…” His resistance is wearing down just as fast as it always does, his hands resting softly on her waist. “I’m too old for you, way too old for you.”

“I don’t think it’s going to matter unless you were planning on kicking it in, like, the next five minutes.” They’re going to have sex not take out a mortgage and adopt a bunch of kids.

“Five to ten…it could happen.”

Ok, the dying, maybe. Him lasting ten minutes? He’s funny.

“So you’d rather get hit by a bus?”

“Parker, I’m serious. What are we doing?” he asks with a note of desperation. She’s trying to get laid. She doesn’t know what he’s doing. Having an existential crisis while feeling her up?

“You’re fucking me. Chop chop.”

He makes a confused groaning noise that starts out frustrated and turns into relieved, as she deftly opens his fly with one hand and reaches into his pants. “This isn’t going to end well.”

“It’s ok. You can go down on me afterwards.”

He calls her names she’s not going to repeat, pushing the stupid dress she had to wear for this job up around her waist.

 

It started out as just another, “Oops, we got caught! Better make out to throw off the security guy…” moment, business as usual, except instead of playing along like Hardison or Eliot or Sophie would have, Nate stiffened when she kissed him and that was just as suspicious as where they were and what was in her purse.

“Look, this isn’t what it looks like…”

She didn’t wait to find out if he knew where he was going with that. “What, are you married to him too?” It totally wasn’t acting when she slapped him. “I’m sick of being your dirty little secret!” 

“Shit! Gina, wait.”

The rent-a-cop didn’t try to stop them as she stormed away, so she would have dropped it, but Nate didn’t.

“What the hell was that? You can’t kiss me!”

That was what they always do. “Why not?” Before he could come up with some rationalization, she turned around and did it again. “See? I just did.”

“Well…don’t!”

“Your lips are saying ‘no,’ but your dick is saying ‘yes,’” she pointed out, brushing a hand over the front of his pants turning the denial into a strangled, “Fuck.”

“Better.”

“Parker, stop,” he ground out between gritted teeth.

“Or what?” She kept lightly trailing her fingers over the fabric.

He suddenly slammed her back against the wall, trapping her wrists and growling low in her ear. “Or I’m going to come in my pants.”

She hooked a leg up around his waist pulling them together. “Good.”

He rolled his hips against hers, groaning, but he still turned his face aside from her lips.

Fine, no kissing. If he wanted to be Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman,” whatever. She bit into his neck instead and warm wetness spread between their legs.

After he let go of her, panting, she stayed lounging against the wall. 

“I’m not running a charity here,” she finally prompted when she got tired of waiting.

She didn’t think his face could get any redder than it had been already. The tingle in her stomach grew into an ache as he glared at her, kneeling anyway.

 

She likes him like that, humiliated and guilty and on his knees, pretending that he hates this while that sliver tongue strokes her clit.

“You enjoy this too much,” he accuses, pinning her to the bed.

Being held down and called a slut, having her hair pulled and her ass smacked? Not really. But making Nate, who is always in control, lose it? Yeah, that’s pretty much her new favorite thing after stealing stuff.

That’s how he acts, like they’re stealing something, but whose fault is that? Hardison and Sophie are asking for more than she and Nate know how to give. She thought they were doing this because it was easy, so when he tries to make it more difficult than it needs to be, that scares her and when he tries to kiss her afterwards, she’s the one who turns away. He’s too old for her and she’s too messed up…even for him.


	2. Cognitive Dissonance

The hair prickles on the back of his neck just before she slips out of the shadows.

He says, “You shouldn’t be here.”

She says, “Don’t think so hard about it,” her back to him, coat already sliding down her shoulders. 

She leaves a careless trail to the bedroom, trench and heels and panties. Thus is his path to hell paved. 

“This is weird. We should stop.” He really means it this time…just like the last time and the time before that.

“So what? I’m weird. Deal with it.” Her shoulders hunch away defensively even as she clings to him and he doesn’t have the strength to resist gathering her up in his arms. She’s so willing to believe she is unwanted.

“Parker…I’m too old for you, way too old for you.” The words “daddy issues” burn themselves into his psyche, scarlet letters. 

“I don’t think it’s going to matter unless you were planning on kicking it in, like, the next five minutes.” 

“Five to ten…it could happen.” Does she have to be such a bitch? Is it asking so much? That they at least talk about this?

“So you’d rather get hit by a bus?”

“Reason with” is to Parker as “piss into” is to the wind.

“I’m serious. What are we doing?” What is he thinking? For Christ’s sake, this is Parker, Parker. 

“You’re fucking me.”

It started with stares that lingered more disquietingly long than usual and a calculated disregard towards personal space, her body brushing up against him almost like it could have been an accident. He merely noted these things and filed them away, dismissing any obvious interpretation because when have the workings of her mind ever been obvious? No, the best way to deal with Parker being odd was to ignore it he decided. This was his first mistake. 

It was hard to ignore her lips coaxing his apart, the sting of her palm against his cheek, so hard he somehow ended up with ruined slacks and aching knees, holding her up with only his hand on her hip and two fingers inside her as she shuddered in pleasure, her legs going weak. 

“Fuck…” she breathed raggedly, sliding the rest of the way down the wall to join him on the floor when he finally let her. “That…you…” 

He grabbed her by the chin, his thumb stilling her lips. “If you ever do that again--” he began in his most deadly calm voice. Clearly, letting her call their plays led to disaster.

The pink tip of her tongue darted out, laving teasingly over the pad of his thumb before she sucked it into the heat of her mouth and then pulled away with a soft sound that was pure sin.

“Yeah, Nate? Tell me what you’re going to do to me.”

And Jesus Christ, what was he supposed to do? He’s not a saint. No, she’s thoroughly disabused him of that notion. It’s like she knew somehow, Parker, who can’t read anyone, what urges lurk in the darkest corners of his mind, the thoughts he’d only ever indulged with his hand.

She keeps pushing until he pushes back, until he throws her on the bed and shoves what’s left of her clothes out of his way and just has her. It’s good in the way only wrong things can be. She’s already wet for him and still so fucking tight it’s as close to pain as pleasure. Nothing fits together, her knee digging into his ribs. Her body obeys some non-Euclidean geometry, twisting until he breaks, all his anger finally finding an outlet, like lightning finding a path to ground, leaving destruction in its wake, smeared makeup and torn dress and bruises on her wrists…

God, he’s going to hell. If there weren’t a hell, he’s necessitated its creation. You don’t have to think very hard about Parker’s history to guess what her experience with sex, with bruises, with drunk, middle-aged men has been. 

When he reaches for her trying to assuage his guilt, her lips like penance on his tongue, she pulls away.

She says, “I need to go.”

He says, “You need to stay.”

“For what?” She sighs like he’s exhausting, standing by the bed sliding back on her shoes. 

“Forever.” He catches her around the waist before she can get away, pressing his cheek to her stomach. He is not the first man who has treated her badly, but he will be the last. He swears it on the only thing that still means anything to him.

“How drunk are you?” She pushes him off of her. “You want the ‘girlfriend experience’? Call Sophie.”

Sophie is not his girlfriend. He has been trying to explain this point to Sophie for years.

He bites back a scathing retort. “I want you.” Is that so difficult to believe? If she only knew how beautiful, how smart she is.

“No,” she corrects him with forced patience, “you want to ‘help’ me because that’s what you do.”

He gazes up into her eyes pleadingly, rubbing soft circles on her hipbone with his thumb. “So let me.” He used to be the better man that she deserves. For a moment, he allows himself the delusion that he could be that man again. This is his last mistake. 

He flinches as the empty bottle shatters against the wall.

Her smile is a red slash like a knife wound, pouring salt where she knows it’s going to hurt. “You think if I needed a ‘daddy,’ I’d come to you, Nate?”

“Get out.” 

He doesn’t bother saying, “Don’t come back.” She’s right. He has no fucking business telling anyone what’s good for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much like Nate, I was going to stop (I swear!), but then someone subscribed to my oneshot and I will take any excuse to write more of these two being fucked up. So whoever you are, thank you. :)


	3. Opportunity Cost

Alone, in the dark, she wishes she’d just stayed. How bad could it have been? “Forever,” yeah right. He wanted a warm body to sleep next to and a blowjob in the morning. She could have handled that.

Now every time she tries to shut her eyes she sees the pain on his face. Why did she have to go there? He doesn’t say shit about her past, about her family. He didn’t say, “Sure, why not? This is what you’re used to, isn’t it?”

She curls up into a tiny, miserable ball.

 

She lingers as everybody else fades away, back to whatever they do when they’re not being “Leverage.”

Sophie leaves in a snit because Nate snapped at her over nothing.

Hardison hints that he wants to do something (like literally anything, he’d try rock climbing).

She says, “Yeah, that sounds like fun,” glaring over his shoulder. The word “fun” comes out sounding like she meant something else. 

“Ok,” Hardison puts up his hands defensively, “message received.”

Yeah, she’s pissed at Hardison too because that is what she wants to do tonight. She doesn’t want to deal with Nate. She doesn’t want to get ignored or bitched out. She just wants to laugh at Hardison for freaking out about being four feet off the ground, but she can’t because Hardison like-likes her and that means they can’t just hang out, for fun. This one time she thought she’d made a friend. She thought he took her places and bought her stuff because he was nice. She was wrong. 

Eliot looks like he’s got something to say and then shakes his head and slams the door behind him. Eliot’s seen enough fights to know which ones to walk away from.

Then it’s just the two of them and she can hear his silence throbbing in her head, can feel the negative space where his hands belong like he hit her.

The glass finally clinks against the counter and he mutters, “I can’t do this.”

“You keep using that word.” Can’t. “I don’t think you know what it means.”

“I don’t know what you want from me.” He sounds more tired than angry.

Sometimes she doesn’t either.

 

Hardison tells her there are lots of universes. In one of them, Nate marries Sophie.

_It’s like watching a train crash at the speed of paint drying…and there’s champagne._

_“A grand says he can’t make it a year.”_

_Eliot snorts. “‘Retirement’ or them?”_

_“Both.”_

_Hardison just sighs. “Damn girl, you so cold hell’s going to freeze over when you die.”_

 

_“Eliot owes me money,” she says, never taking her eyes off the recon target._

_“I missed you too.” If that was supposed to be sarcasm, he’s not very good at it._

_“So you still don’t trust me or you just can’t stand her?”_

_It’s too sad to be a laugh, the sound he makes. “She can’t stand me. She said she needed ‘space.’”_

_That sounds like Sophie._

_Out of the corner of her eye she sees him reach to rub at the gold band, picking at the wound. Some habits are hard to break._

_“Parker…”_

_Like she said, some habits are hard to break._

_“You don’t need it anymore.”_

_For once he doesn’t argue with her._

 

_Nate was a crappy boss. He’s an even worse employee._

_“You’re drunk.” If he was going to be useless, he could have done that somewhere else._

_“You’re pretty when you’re angry,” he slurs with a shit eating grin._

_“I’m pretty when you’re desperate.” She knows she’s not, not like Sophie. She’s all arms and legs and no boobs, angles where there should be curves, but then he’s not pretty either anymore. Whether it’s just time or all the alcohol or the lack of giving a fuck, Nate’s gone a little soft especially around the middle. When she was a kid she never had nice things. She always got what was leftover, what nobody else wanted anymore. She promised herself when she grew up it wasn’t going to be that way._

_“How many second chances do you think you get?”_

_“The way I remember it you wouldn’t give me a first one.”_

Hardison tells her there are lots of universes. As hard as she tries, she can’t imagine what the one where she does would look like.


End file.
